njcommuter:
Or order some Botox from Putin for Nancie’s Plastic Surgeon.
—
Russian forces Digging in in Georgia –

IGOETI, Georgia – Russian forces built ramparts around tanks and posted sentries on a hill in central Georgia on Saturday, digging in despite Western pressure for Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The United States and France said it appeared Russia was defying the truce already. Russian troops still controlled two Georgian cities and the key east-west highway between them Saturday, cities well outside the breakaway provinces where earlier fighting was focused.

“From my point of view — and I am in contact with the French — the Russians are perhaps already not honoring their word,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Medvedev had signed the cease-fire deal and ordered its implementation, but would not withdraw troops until Moscow is satisfied that security measures allowed under the agreement are effective. He said Russia would strengthen its peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian region at the center of more than a week of warfare that sharply soured relations between Moscow and the West.

Asked how much time it would take, he responded: “As much as is needed.”

President Bush warned Russia Saturday that it cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia even though their sympathies lie with Moscow. “There is no room for debate on this matter,” the president, with Rice, told reporters at his Texas ranch.

ht – al-Bob